First coronavirus jabs scheduled for Wednesday

Jamaica yesterday received its first batch of 50,000 AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccines from India, which will start to be administered on Wednesday, March 10.

"As per the standard we indicated, the vaccination programme will begin 48 hours after receipt of the vaccines at the airport. Therefore our schedule for us to begin our vaccination programme is Wednesday March 10," Dunstan Bryan, permanent secretary in the health ministry announced at a virtual press briefing.

HEALTHCARE WORKERS

The vaccines would be administered in groups of 10, according to Bryan, starting with healthcare workers.

"Week one we intend to inoculate over 17,000 health care workers, week two over 11,000 health care workers along with persons from the JDF and JCF and in week three we will continue and begin to introduce the elderly population," he said. "We will provide approximately 25,000 elderly in infirmaries, homes and other persons who are deemed in that 60 and over group that can access our vaccination programme in March. In April, we will roll out to the wider population of the elderly and persons working in educational institutions and other uniformed groups."

"March/April first dose, May/June second dose, and then we will move to phase two that looks at economic groups, then phase three which deals with general population," he added.

Along with the vaccines received from India, the country is set to receive another 14,400 vaccines from the COVAX facility.

Meanwhile, Prime Minster Andrew Holness, while speaking at the briefing, reassured Jamaicans that there would be a fair roll-out of the vaccines.

"Regardless of who you are in this society, once the rule is set you will abide by it. I'm committed to ensuring that the distribution of this vaccine does not fall in this category of nationally important goods to be distributed where people break the line and because of connections they get it first," he said.